On September 11, Morgan Stanley had AFDI’s billboards critical of Islam removed from Times Square

On the 16th anniversary of the worst attack in history on American soil — an attack carried out in the cause of Islam, and unlike Pearl Harbor, an attack on civilians — the cowards at one of America’s leading financial institutions demanded that the billboards for our new movie on the bloody Islamic jihad against the freedom of speech be taken down.

Not to worry: thanks to the craven cowards over at Morgan Stanley, we got a bigger, better, prime digital billboard in the heart of Times Square.

Here’s what happened. On Monday afternoon, a representative of Clear Channel, the billboard company with which we are working, called my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), and told us that our billboard in Times Square advertising our new documentary film, Can’t We Talk About This? The Islamic Jihad Against Free Speech, had to come down: “We were informed by the landlord, I know we received approval, but they had a number of complaints from tenants in their building about the creative that we put up, and they are requiring us to take it down as of tonight. So there’s not much we can do about it, ‘cause the landlord has the final say.”

The Clear Channel employee said he couldn’t tell disclose which of the building’s tenants complained, and said that the landlord had initially discounted the complaints, but they kept coming: “They actually let it go. They said, we understand, we receive complaints from people on a lot of different creatives, but if it continues, we’re going to have to take it down. Well, they gave us a call late this afternoon, said they’d received a number of complaints in addition to that, so I really don’t have any choice, it’s always contingent upon the landlord’s decision.”

A source with intimate knowledge of the situation told me that the principal tenant behind the complaints was Morgan Stanley, which owns a majority of the floors in the building. I was able to discover that they own floors 59 through 74 and others as well.

This is where we are 16 years after 9/11? This wouldn’t be such appalling news if the complaining tenant hadn’t been Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley, of all companies, should know better. They had several floors at the World Trade Center, and 3,700 employees there. Ten of its employees were murdered in the 9/11 jihad attacks.

It must be remembered how that happened. The horror and death was on a scale that was unimaginable in…America. People who, just hours earlier, had their morning joe, kissed their wives or husbands, took their children to school, maybe grabbed a McMuffin and hurried into the city to get to their desks, were faced with the most shocking, horrific imminent death. Men and women waving shirts or jackets stood on the gashed edge of a gaping wound at the top floors of the Towers. No one could get to them. No one could help them. The heat from the flames of the airplane turned fireball left people with no choice. Burn to death or jump. Hundreds jumped to their deaths.

Eyewitnesses talked of a couple who held hands as they fell. One woman, in a final act of modesty, appeared to be holding down her skirt. Others tried to make parachutes out of curtains or tablecloths, only to have them wrenched from their grip by the force of their descent. The sound of the bodies hitting the pavement was deafening.
This is what Morgan Stanley has come to: carrying water for the violent and oppressive ideology that killed ten of its employees on 9/11, along with thousands of others. It’s ironic: my billboard announces the release our shocking new film detailing the concerted effort by international organizations to compel the U.S. and other Western countries to curtail the freedom of speech and criminalize criticism of Islam.

Featuring exclusive new interviews with me, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, Mark Steyn, Douglas Murray, Ezra Levant, Lars Vilks, Garland Muhammad cartoon contest winner Bosch Fawstin, and many other heroes of freedom, this web series will be the first ever to expose the war on free speech. It is certain to shock the American public and awaken many. These interviews reveal events at Garland and its aftermath that have never before been made public, and demonstrate how far advanced the war on free speech really is.

Can’t we talk about this? Morgan Stanley, a victim of the 9/11 attacks, says no. Our billboard was taken down and replaced with a giant photo of a woman’s butt with the headline, “wanna better butt?” That’s not offensive?

We are not giving up, of course. We are got an even better billboard in Times Square. These cowards and destroyers always shoot themselves in the foot. We always turn their evil actions into positives for us.

Shame on you, Morgan Stanley.

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The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI)
The American Freedom Defense Initiative is a new organization launched by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Our objective is to go on the offensive when legal, academic, legislative, cultural, sociological, and political actions are taken to dismantle our basic freedoms and values.